To me, this movie is perfection.

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

If you know the doings of Bobby Knight, then you'll quickly notice that coach Pete Bell is modeled after the IU legend. Even down to the kicking the basketball in the stands. His "teaching" of the games, emphasis on defense, and heretofore clean program could have been lifted from "Season on the Brink" by John Feinstein. And if you enjoy seeing Tark the Shark, Jim Boeheim, Bob Cousy, and even Knight himself, you will like this film. If you are looking for continuity, character development, and basically a reason for filming this monstrosity of a jock movie,then you will be disappointed. True, it was filmed in Indiana, my native state. True, Larry Bird makes a cameo appearance but the rest of it is so clichéd that you'll wonder why the screenwriters didn't inject a bit of originality. This type of story has been done dozens of times previously and it could work again. But when the producers are overly reliant on big name sports stars and lame acting from all, you have a very predictable flick that is good for little more than killing 90 minutes of tube time.

Blue Chips, for a sports movie, was very well done and well put together. Pete Bell, played by Nolte, is a Bob Knight style coach at Western University, a fictitous university in LA (think UCLA). After a few sub-par seasons, he has his first losing season as head coach and to keep up with the other big programs (think Kentucky and Michigan), he needs to recruit some top players, or blue chips, to come to Western. Strictly against under the table recruiting, Bell is forced to make a tough decision. Recruit good but not great players and perhaps lose his job due to losing as head coach, or go after the top 10 recruits to keep his job and start winning again. The movie plays out well and supporting actors, JT Walsh and Shaq, give solid performances. As for the basketball action itself, this movie probably has the best game sequences I have ever seen in a movie, with real college players filling as extras. There is also a load of cameos, including Rick Pitino, Dick Vitale and Larry Bird to name a few. Blue Chips is a solid movie and a very good sports movie.

Blue Chips - starting such wasted talent as Nick Nolte! Not to mention such all star actors as Shaquille O'Neal. From the get-go, it is not the smartest of movies, but it did have its fair share of entertaining value as the movie progressed. I thought Shaq would be a dismal actor, but he came to play, or at least more than Nolte did. I felt Nolte and his character were wildly out of control, not balanced with the movie, and simply not quality. I clearly understand that his character is a wild individual, but the odd mood swings, and multi-persona touch that he added to the character was weird and distracting.Props to Shaq for dunking nearly continously during the film - once again showing that his shooting range is typically 2-3 inches. A shame too, because the movie highlight this stereotype and runs with it. Penny was alright, but in this day in age, where is his almost a forgotten player, it was more of a nostalgia to watch him in the movie.Overall, the movie sucked. The moral plot was weak, and there was little else to the content of the film. By far the worst part was the ended which gives rather weak explanations of what happens post-ending. 5/10 stars for some decent basketball footage, and a different type of basketball movie. But it lacks five stars for poor plot, acting, and a sloppy ending which tries to tie together a bunch of moral stuff without much success.

Pete Bell is a college basketball coach. He's under pressure to win and is under pressure to get the players by any means necessary. How will he stand up to the pressure or will he give in to pressure?Basketball movies are often the `weak team overcomes' type and are not exactly great. Some are good (Hoosiers) but most are mildly distracting at best (The air up there), few reach the heights of Hoop Dreams. However Blue Chips is good because it manages to cast a critical eye over the real world of college ball – there are no small town winners, there are no `kids with hearts of gold' etc – instead it is as much a business as the NBA and the stakes are high to get the best players.Bell shows us how he must juggle doing what's right but also doing what the players want in order to get a winning team. This is refreshing – rather than yet another sports movie with the same old cliches. The down side is that it doesn't go far enough in my mind and it doesn't offer solutions.Nolte is good and is really convincing as a coach – even if he's a bit OTT at times on the sidelines. His support is great in the form of McDonnell, Walsh, Woodard and the real players of Shaq and Penny do OK. The cast is also filled out with plenty of coaches, commentators and such from real life – so there's plenty to see.Overall this is one of my favourite basketball movies simply because it tells it like it is – even if it does have it's weaknesses.